240 THE msTOiiY or AKIHALS. [B. ix 



3. In this manner they have usually a great affection for 

 each other. Some females will copulate with males that are 

 not their own mates. This bird is contentious, they fight 

 together, and attack each other's nests, though not fre- 

 quently, for although they are beaten w r hen at a distance, 

 they will fight to the last when near their nests ; it appears 

 to be characteristic of the pigeon, phaps, and turtle not 

 to lean back when they drink, unless they have had suffi- 

 cient. The turtle and phatta aways remain faithful to the 

 same male, and will not permit another to approach them, 

 and the male and female share the labour of incubation. 

 The male and female are not easily distinguished, except 

 by their internal structure. 



4. The phatta is long-lived, they have been known to 

 live for twenty-five or thirty years, some even forty years ; 

 their claws grow when they become aged, and pigeon 

 breeders cut them off, and in no other respect are they in- 

 ferior when aged. The turtle and the pigeon, if they have 

 been blinded by those who use them as decoy birds, will live 

 eight years. The partridge lives fifteen years, the phaps and 

 the turtle always build in the same places. 



5. On the whole, males also live longer than females, but in 

 these birds they say that the males die before the females ; 

 this conclusion is derived from the observation of those 

 which are brought up in houses for decoy birds. Some 

 persons say that cock-sparrows only live for one year, con- 

 sidering this as a proof, that early in the spring there are no 

 birds with black beneath the chin ; but they have it after- 

 wards, as if none of the former birds had survived. The 

 hen-sparrows have a longer life, for these are taken among 

 the young birds, and are easily known by the hard portion 

 about their bills. The turtle lives during the summer in 

 cold places, and during the winter in warm places. The finch 

 lives during the summer in warm places, and in cold places 

 during winter. 



CHAPTER IX. 



1. THE heavy birds do not make nests, for it does not agree 

 with their mode of flight, as the quail, partridge, and all 

 such birds ; but when they have made a hole in the smooth 

 ground (for they never produce their young in any other 



